A Global Religious Shift Underway? What It Means for Christians and Israel

A strong voice for evangelicals around the world says Christians should expect some big changes in the world’s religious landscape this year.

Rev. Johnnie Moore has worked behind the scenes with the US administration
and other world leaders, including recent meetings with Saudi Arabia’s crown
prince and other leaders in Muslim countries.

He tells the Religion News Service we’ll see changes in America’s
intersections with faith, along with some global transitions, dynamic
alliances, and evangelical growth

For example, Moore pointed out a few days ago on Twitter that persecuted
Christians in Egypt are beginning to see some positive signs from the
government there.

Moore, who’s been called “a modern-day Dietrich Bonhoeffer,” serves
as a commissioner on the US Commission on International Religious Freedom,
president of the Congress of Christian Leaders and an informal spokesperson for
the evangelicals who advise the Trump administration. He is the founder of the
KAIROS Company, a media relations company representing many influential
Christian leaders and organizations.

In his interview with RNS, Moore highlighted the transition of power taking
place in multiple historic institutions. Whether politically, academically, or
theologically, Moore recognizes the power dynamic shift as “many older
millennials will jump their Generation X siblings in being selected for those
positions.”

He even feels historic institutions no longer carry the level of dominance they
once had, citing the “digital age” as the cause for the major shifts.

“The organizations will continue to hold major sway but a different type
of sway, which will largely be determined by how they adapt,” Moore said.

The digital age – fueled more and more by the proliferation of mobile
devices and other forms of technology – is catapulting the world to
another dimension of independent thinking and expression. Of course, social
media has played a significant role in institutions such as religion and
politics.

With individuals having access to more knowledge and methods of expressing
their own views, Moore sees a growth in dynamic alliances as many move outside
of cultural and institutional norms.

Moore cited the recent bipartisan agreement of conservative evangelical
advisers to President Trump and liberal CNN host Van Jones about the First Step
Act as an example of dynamic alliances taking place.

“More practically speaking, in light of the unprecedented bipartisan
efforts (and success) of the First Step Act, there will be other such efforts
because there is now a bipartisan playbook for our divided moment,” Moore
said. “The First Step Act, a justice reform bill, was actually only the
most public of several of these successes made possible by certain Democrats
who believe ‘resistance’ is un-American and of center-right evangelicals who
believe in what the late theologians Carl F.H. Henry and Francis Schaefer
called ‘co-belligerency.'”

Moore believes the dynamic alliances will carry over to religion as global
interfaith efforts are gradually growing.

He’s expecting increased interfaith exchanges between Christians, Muslims
and Jews, and even the Hindu community, stating efforts may even include
“the very real possibility that 2019 will likely be the year one or more
majority-Muslim, and even Arab, countries — while remaining ever supportive of
a Palestinian state — will decide that a resolution to the Israeli and
Palestinian conflict is not a mandatory prerequisite for detente if not full-on
diplomatic relations with the State of Israel.”

Other predictions include evangelicalism becoming the second largest stream of
global Christianity and Trump utilizing his Senate Republican majority “to
stack the courts in the United States with originalist judges.”

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Revelation 1:3 "Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near".
Tommy Settipani,
Watchman for Christ